MITZI: Tranquility and Parks

As my time here is progressing I am beginning to find my niche in Sevilla.  I am still finding new things I love about the city everyday, but I am also finding my favorite places that I tend to return.

I went to the alcazar (palace) again because I loved it so much the first time.  And I fell in love with this door.

Real Alcazar.  Round two.

  One new thing that I discovered here is actually quite embarrassing.  I knew that Maria Lousia Park was very close to my apartment, and I had been in it a couple times but only for short periods of time.  I never realized how big it was and how magnificent the Plazas that rest in it are.  Specifically Plaza de España.  It’s near the entrance to the park and is simply glorious.  They just newly renovated it and it has benches tiled specifically for every city in Spain!  Very unique, I quite enjoy it.

Plaza de España

 I decided to go running through the park last weekend and was pleasantly surprised to find the Plaza and little places in the park perfect for reading and relaxing.

Parque Maria Lousia

Perfect reading place. :)

Plaza de España. Courtsey of Google search, they can do what I can't when I don't have my photographer boyfriend with me.

  I love love love love love love love the atmosphere here in Spain.  Everyone and everything is so tranquil.  It’s normal here to just go for a walk and get lost in your thoughts or chat with your friends.  I love it.  No stress, no pressure, no agenda.  Just simply to enjoy life and appreciate what is around you. 

PERI: The Start of Fall

Sorry I have been a little delinquent in my blog writing, I cannot believe how fast time is passing here!  The weather has really changed in the past week or so;  we are no longer able to lounge on the beach (pout!!) and a jacket is definitely necessary when leaving the house in the morning.  I have midterms in the upcoming week and the Monday after;  I am a little unsure about how those will go... the structure of classes here is very different from the States, things are not as straight forward.  However, I feel like I am one of the most prepared students in both of my classes, so I am not worried.  Spanish class is going well, I feel like my Spanish is improving everyday.  It is still a bit difficult to speak with my host mom because of her accent and her strong tendency to mix Catalan words in with Spanish.  One thing that really helps me though is listening to the news.  Every night at dinner the TV is turned on to the news, and although that would be an odd dinner behavior in my house back home, I enjoy listening to the newscasters because they have a nice pace and little accent.

Last weekend Elizabeth and I went to Tarragona, a province about an hour by train south of Barcelona.  Tarragona is famous for its Roman ruins.  It was great to see the ancient amphitheater, palaces, and prison (and even more great because it only cost 5 Euro for students to see all the cites!).  I am really trying to be frugal these days, the worth of the American dollar seems to keep going down compared to the Euro, it seems like the conversion rate is getting consistently worse unfortunately for us American students.

Roman Amphitheater (notice the LC shirt) ;)

This week I learned something VERY cool about where I live.  In my History of Barcelona class, we are learning about the Gothic Quarter, and more specifically, the Jewish Quarter of Barcelona.  In one of our class readings discussing the remaining buildings from this period, MY ADDRESS was mentioned several times!  "Other notable features are part of the [Roman] wall with the walkway across the top and a tower at [my address]... , excavated in 1996... The remaining part of this defensive construction must be partly hidden inside the buildings".  The article also says that that origins of my building were built in the 14th or 15th century.  COOL!  My profesora was very impressed that I get to live here (and I feel very lucky too!).

The part of my street that the article is referring to (my house on the left)

Time passes very strangely here: the days seem to go by too slow (a 16+ hour day here is very normal... hence the siestas), the nights go by too fast, and it seems like the weeks are just disappearing!  This weekend we are traveling to Valencia with our ISA group.  I am so excited I can hardly contain myself for next week.... Andrew, my fiance, is coming to visit for a week!!! :)  After he leaves I have two free weekends then an ISA trip to Girona, Spain, then for Thanksgiving and my birthday I am going to visit Mitzi in Sevilla, then we have our Rome trip, finals week, and then one final trip to Geneva, Switzerland that we booked this week!  It is going to be pretty hectic, but very exciting. All these trips are helping this time fly by until I go home to see my loved ones again!  As much as I love it here, I have to admit that Christmas time is going to be a very very happy time for me :).

MITZI: Midterms and Daily Life

I first want to apologize for not posting sooner.  Time is flying by here, ridiculously fast.  Two months from today I will be home.  Right in time for Christmas, which by the way I think will be my best Christmas yet.  :)  It’s been hard to be away from home, but skype and google talk, and all forms of communication, help me stay in tuned with home.

I am right smack dab in the middle of midterm week right now, and in fact, I should be studying, but I don’t think my mind can take any more Spanish right now.  There are some times here where I am super tired and I physically have to force myself to concentrate when my mamá or whoever is talking to me.  It’s hard!!  I feel like my brain goes on overload and can’t comprehend what they are saying.  Or I will focus on one word and try to translate it in my head, but when I start listening again I missed the ten following words...  I felt like I hit a wall with my comprehension and speaking abilities for a while, but now I feel like I am getting back into the swing of things and feel more confident.

So yes, midterms.  Tomorrow I have a midterm oral exam for my Spanish conversation class where I have to talk with my partner for ten minutes straight about a specific theme (such as food, movies, our childhood, our plans for the future, etc.).  Needless to say it is a bit difficult and we have spent countless hours these past couple of days in Starbucks practicing.  I can only imagine what we sound like to Spaniards trying to enjoy a cup of coffee... Ha.  I also have my midterm for my one class in English tomorrow: History of Spanish Art, which should be interesting.  I have more on thursday and next week but I don’t feel like writing about them because it just reminds me of all that I have to do.

I figure that it might help to understand a typical day for me here in Sevilla.  On weekdays I get up around 730 or 930 depending on classes and make myself breakfast.  I have become addicted to tostadas con aceite, which is toasted french bread with lots of olive oil on it.  Yumm.  Definitely bringing that addiction back to the states. :)  After breakfast I get ready for classes and take the metro (about a 40 minute commute) to school.  I have two classes Monday through Thursday and am home for lunch around 230pm with my family each day.  Every day lunch and dinner are provided for Katie and I, which has been wonderful.  Usually after lunch I will take a little siesta.  Afterwords I will meet with a friend, do homework, go for a walk, or whatever really.  It’s super relaxed and I love it.  Then I have dinner around 9pm and occasionally get together with a friend and go out for dessert.  It’s been great so far. :)

With love,
Mitzi

PERI: General Strike, Mont Serrat, and some Lakers :)

     I swear that things never cease to amaze me here!  Since La Mercé, I have not seen any human towers or people being chased with fireworks, but I have seen some unprecedented things nonetheless!  On September 30th, there was a "Vaga General" (General Strike in Catalan) throughout the country.  The Spanish economy is in very bad shape: the government has had to cut wages, hours, benefits, and jobs in many many areas of work.  Hence, the two main trade unions in the country organized a general strike, the first in the country since 2002.  According to several news stations, it would be "business as usual" throughout the country... this could not be farther from the truth.
     Our program warned us of the possibilities of what could be going on here; they told us that it would be wise to stay in as much as possible, be cautious and aware, but that everything should be just fine.  Our culture classes were cancelled for the day, but language classes were still going to be in session.  My profesora assured us that she would be there (even though the metro would only be running at 25% of their capacity), and that if is was at all possible for us to get to school, that we needed to.  So, the morning of the strike, Elizabeth and I head out for school.  Everything was deathly quiet: shops not preparing to open, no one in the usually-crowded square except for policemen, no men handing out the morning paper, no people with their dogs and strollers in the park... it was eerie.  So we arrive at school and cannot get through the main doors because large protester's banners had been placed over the doors.  We made it in a side door and up to our classes.  Four other students were waiting outside my class as well; we waited about ten minutes, then I decided to text Elizabeth.  She told me that no one showed up at her class, and one of our friend's professors told her that all classes were cancelled because of a large mob that was at the school earlier.  She said that the mob would have come into classes and made them be dismissed, so the professors were telling their students to go home... scary!

      We then decided to go home.  After resting for a few hours, I became very restless and wanted to get out of the room.  Elizabeth and I decided to go out and see what was going on, which was nothing (thankfully).  Garbage-men (which are normally astonishingly efficient) were on strike, so trash was strewn all over the streets, making them smelly and difficult to walk through, but other than that there were not many physical signs of the strike.  I am thankful that our area was so quiet, in other parts of the city, this was not the case.  There were mobs of protestors taking over empty buildings, smashing in store windows and stealing merchandise (Levi's store that I know of), burning trash cans in the streets, blocking off roads, and even, as the picture below shows, burning police cars. ¡Qué fuerte!  It was scary being here in the country and not realizing the full weight of this issue, and not knowing how much the situation was going to progress, and only partially knowing what people are capable of.

Police car-- lit on fire by strikers

Mob of strikers and policemen in Plaza Catalunya-- pictures from Demotix news site

    The strike was held on a Wednesday, and luckily, Thursday things really were back to normal.  On Sunday myself, Elizabeth, and two other girls from our program took a day trip to Montserrat.  Montserrat is about and hour and a half outside of Barcelona by train, and it is a gorgeous mountainous area that looks completely different from the landscape around the city.  Montserrat was, and still is today, a monastery for Benedictine monks; today however, it is also a popular tourist spot.  Once we got off the train, we had to take the furnacular (cable car) to the top of the mountain.  We arrived in the morning, so it was still very foggy and chilly, but luckily as the day went on, the fog wore off.  The buildings surrounding the monastery were gorgeous, and the mountain views are nothing short of incredible.  When the fog was slowly working its way up the mountain and also burning off on top from the sun, I honestly felt as though we were in some strange limbo between heaven and earth, it was breathtaking.  We didn't go into the museum, but we took a 40 minute hike over to a cross on another peak of the mountain.  It was a lovely day trip :).

 Furnacular up to the monastery

 The monastery

 The monastery and other buildings are on the left, cross is barely visible on the far right

    Tonight, the Lakers play Barcelona's Basketball team.  The whole city is buzzing over it because Pau Gasol of the Lakers is from Spain.  We had been hearing rumors about a 2 on 2 tournament between Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol and 2 Spanish players.  After hearing bits and pieces, we finally heard of a definite place (a court set up by Foot Locker and Nike in a remote and kind of ghetto back alley) and time.  We went early because we new that it was probably going to be crazy.  I am so glad we did!  There was only one way to get in, and we needed a ticket... dang it!  After talking to the guard at the gate (a little), we stood hopefully waiting for some chance to get in.  Then, one by one, he started slipping us tickets to go in!  All of our group got in and was able to sit together, yay!  We waited over 2 and a half hours to even see Kobe (fashionably late?) and I ended up missing class because it went so long past when it was supposed to, which I hadn't planned on doing.  It was really cool to get to  see Kobe and Pau! Kobe was very relaxed and comfortable and was joking around with the other players.  After the 2 on 2 tournament of various teams of young players finished, the 4 professional players all sat down for a short interview with the commentator.  They then played a short (very short) game of 2 on 2... it was 16 seconds long... But, it was very cool to see the players (especially when the whole city is so excited about them being here), and just feel the electric energy of the whole scene. 

Left to right: Ricky Rubio, Kobe Bryant, Juan Carlos Nevarro, Pau Gasol

 

Spray paint murals they were completing while we watched... very talented!

MITZI: Sevilla

Yesterday I took a little stroll around my part of town, Nervión.  It’s the newer part of the city, mostly apartments.  I found a super cute park and lots of little restaurants along the street. 

Park in Nervión

I slowly made my way toward the city center, where the cathedral and my favorite part of the city, barrio de santa cruz, is.  I randomly met up with some girls I knew from school and had lunch with them.  It was a good day.

One random thing that I saw a dominos delivery guy... on a motorcycle! Haha I loved it! So awesome!  It had a place for the pizzas on the back and everything!  It makes complete sense too because the streets are so narrow in some places.  On my way back I also saw two couples who had just gotten married.  So cute.  It’s crazy if you go to the center on a saturday, you can just follow people who are super dressed up and end up at a wedding, because they are public!  At least that is what someone told me, and I am definitely going to try it out.

How about a "get-away" horse drawn carriage? :)

One thing that I am really starting to get tired of is how men treat women here.  It is so common to be objectified and cat-called, it is starting to not phase me anymore.  Here we call them “viejos verdes,” they are really just guys who have a cultural license to be rude to women.  They will kiss at you, say super inappropriate stuff, laugh, point, and just stare.  I knew that this would happen when I came, so I wasn’t surprised or anything, it’s just annoying.

I am really really really happy with my living situation.  Katie and I talk a lot about how lucky we are to have a really great host family.  We are all starting to bond a little more, and understand each other’s personalities.  I really like having an older brother to joke around with, and my grandma is freaking hilarious (like most grandmas, always saying the most random, inappropriate stuff), and my mamá is so sweet, I feel like she really actually cares about us.  This weekend she left to go out with a friend and I was staying home, so she came into my room and gave me two kisses “dos besitos” on the cheek.  It was just really comforting.

Today I went to a Spanish Baptist church.  It was two and a half hours long. No joke.  But I really liked it, I was able to understand the gist of what the pastor was saying if I really concentrated.  It was different from the churches back a home, obviously, but it was still a good experience.  It’s just nice to know that it is something that connects people from all parts of the world. :)

MITZI: Bullfight and Ronda

Oh how the time is flying by.  I cannot believe that it has been a month since I started my program with ISA in Madrid.  I am going to be home before I know it.  In this past month Sevilla has grown on me and I feel so much more at home in this wonderful city.  It feels good to know where I am going (most of the time), know different little shortcuts, and start to have favorite little places to go to.  My favorite place so far is the Barrio de Santa Cruz, it’s the old Jewish quarter of the city, super eclectic and rustic, with white buildings and wonderful food, I could get lost in there for hours.

Barrio de Santa Cruz :)

Last weekend I went and saw a bullfight.  It was the last one of the season, and all the matadors were super famous, hence, tickets were expensive.  But it was totally worth it.  Bullfighting is definitely something you have to see if you go to Spain.  It’s all about the culture, and it is a huge part of their history!

Sold out bullring.

The bull & the Picador (the guy on the horse)

"El Juli" a famous matador

A lot of people in our program had mixed feelings about it.  I enjoyed being able to see the fight and learn a little more about Spanish history.  Seeing the bull die didn’t really bother me, I don’t know if I’m just heartless or becoming a true Spaniard. Ha.  But really, it was an amazing experience. 

Pretty intense. :)

 Today ISA took us on a day-trip excursion to Ronda.  It was a beautiful city in the mountains.  Very quaint and homey.  I loved it.  I went on a little hike under the bridge and got some great pictures.

"El Puente Nuevo"

My little hiking buddy. Yup, I hike in a dress. :)

I loved this city. :)

An amazing sight.

 I’m gonna make this one shorter because I am tired of writing such long entries. :)
Enjoy.

PERI: La Mercè!!

   This past weekend was the La Mercé Festival; and also the craziest weekend of my life!!  I will do my very best to describe the madness that all of this weekend had in store.  First of all, La Mercé is the biggest celebration of the year in Barcelona, it is the celebration of the city itself and is a very big source of pride for Catalonians.  Tourists from all over the world come to Barcelona to see the festivities, school everywhere, and even many shops are closed Friday-Sunday to give people a long weekend of partying.  The traditional festivities include: giants of the city (very large puppet-like people that are worn by a single person performing dances to traditional Catalan music in many different events throughout the holiday), Correfoc (fire run where the "devils" of the city run through the streets with fireworks and chase people down, shooting the fireworks "in the air" with sparks falling on spectators (did I mention the majority of these things would be HIGHLY illegal in the states?), castellers (human castle building), lots of concerts throughout the city, and many many more events.

    Thursday night the festivities began at Plaza de Sant Jaume.  Lucky for us, this is one of the main squares where festivities are held and it is literally a three minute walk from our front door!  The opening ceremonies consisted of traditional Catalan music and the introduction of the giants (los gigantes) and the mascots of the city.  Friday was a holiday, and some of the festivities began bright and early in the morning, so Elizabeth  and I woke up early and headed down to the Plaza de Sant Jaume.  The big event of Friday was the catellers, but first even more giants were brought to the square and performed their traditional dances.  By the time the castellers were supposed to perform the square was PACKED: Spaniards, foreigners, babies, old people... everyone was there.  We were squished somewhere in the middle of the plaza, and of course, the festivities run on "Spain time" so everything starts late.  However, the teams did eventually emerge out of a side street and build their "warm-up" towers (a group of people on the ground for support, then a man, woman, and small child all piled on top of each other).  The three teams (all from Barcelona) went on to compete in 3 rounds, each time getting higher and more complex.  It was absolutely incredible to see!  The kids (all about 5-9 years old) are incredibly brave, agile, and fearless!

Giants in Plaza de Sant Jaume

First round of tower building

     That night, we went to see the firework show on the beach; the show was about 20 minutes long and very beautiful, they have different fireworks here than I have ever seen in the states.  After the fireworks, we decided to walk through the park (the same one that we walk through for school, where the large fountain is located).  There were all kinds of things going on there!  The first thing we saw was this amazing lazer-light show, the video I took does it much more justice than the picture, but I felt as though I was in a sci-fi movie!  There were many other strange things going on in the park, so I am glad that we chose to go home that way.

 Lazer!

    Saturday we had most of the day to plan something to do, the major event of the day (Correfoc) was not until 8pm, so Elizabeth and I decided to go to Monjuic, the castle on the hill that overlooks Barcelona.  We rode the metro to the cable cars and then rode those up the hill... it was breathtaking!  We saw EVERYTHING, all the way from the Mediterranean Sea to the outskirts of the city.  It looked so huge and diverse!  You don't see that kind of thing when you are just in the streets.  The castle was beautiful, there were all kinds of circus themed things going on there, unfortunately we did not make it into the circus itself, but it was definitely worth the trip.

    After coming home for a quick siesta, hit the streets for the Fire Run, or Correfoc.  It was insane.  Every year, hundreds of people dress up like devils, and take out big sticks, or pitchforks with humungous sparkler fireworks attached to pinwheel swivels, and walk through the streets and huge crowds of people, spraying them with their fireworks.  Some people feel really brave and stand in the streets with the devils, daring them to chase them (which they do without hesitation, even to people who aren't interested).  We were right up on the street, but figured we would be safe because there were a lot of people on the street in front of us, as well as a large bike-rack separating us from the street.  Well, needless to say, we were not safe there, and ended up about 50 feet further from the street when it was all over.  It was incredible to me though, there were no fire trucks, or policeman, or ambulances to be seen-- even though airborne fireworks as well as the hand held ones were going off in masses of people and between skyscrapers!  

   After Correfoc, we walked back to Sant Jaume Plaza and saw the amazing light show going on there.  3 projectors projected a 3D light show on the building that was PERFECTLY lined up with the building and its features: windows, columns, ornamentation.  It looked like the building itself was fluid and rubber and a screen of its own all at once, it was fantastic!

 All of the features you can see on the building, like the lines around the arches on the bottom floor, are projected.  Notice the windows, how they look like they are warped to the left, in person, you could not see the outlines of the real windows at all!

   Sunday, the final day of the festival, was the day of the big castellers competition!  We got up really early to get a good seat in a cafe that overlooks the square.  When we went out, there was hardly anyone in the square, and we got the exact seat we wanted: by the window, second floor, directly out from where they build.  Over the next hour, the square became JAM PACKED.  I was so happy that we got these seats because we got to sit, we were not in the sun, and we had the perfect view.  The castles that we saw on Friday were NOTHING compared to these!  They went up to 8 and 9 stories tall!  As you can see in the picture, there is a large mass of people on the bottom that you can see, but there is an even larger support layer beneath them, that is mixed in with the crowd.  All in all, I would say there are about 80 people on this team.  Again, there were 3 teams competing, I am not entirely sure where they were from because all of the announcing is done in Catalan which is very different from Spanish to the untrained ear.  This team is one of the non-Barcelona teams, they were very impressive BUT.... the tower just before this one, the small child that tops off the tower FELL from the very top and bounced off people all the way down!  THEN on this tower in the picture, literally seconds after I took this picture, the entire thing COLLAPSED!!!! an 80 person dog pile!!! THANK GOODNESS I got it on video, it was the scariest thing I have ever seen!  The poor mother of that little girl all the way at the top!  I cannot believe that this is an actual sport, but it was amazing to see.

   To finish off the festival, there is a huge fireworks display set to music and choreographed with the fountain at the base of the palace at Plaza de Espanya.  All of the Spaniards come out to watch this event, and obviously so do the tourists so the streets for blocks and blocks were completely full.  It was the most amazing firework display I have ever seen.  They did a fun mix of popular English, and Spanish songs, as well as some Spanish versions of English songs.  We rode the metro home after, and it went surprisingly smoothly.  After getting home Sunday night, I have never been more glad for a weekend to be over.  It was absolutely mind-boggling and great, but so tiring!  The city will feel empty once all of the tourists go home and everyone in the city is not trying to be in the same places at the same times.

All in all, it was a great weekend, the Spaniards sure do know how to get the adrenaline pumping and push the limits on what should be legal!  If you ever get a chance to be in Barcelona for La Mercè, I highly suggest it!